Moscow Education (Idaho)

I have been looking over 2006–2007 attendance numbers for MSD for the past few days (these are the most current numbers available from the Idaho State Department of Education).

Something struck me today: they had 2,407 students in the district with an average daily attendance of 2,2303.66

It seemed really low to have a 91.6% average daily attendance.

Can you imagine if at work 8.4% of your colleagues were absent every day?

So I decided to look at all the other Idaho school districts to see if they were as terrible as MSD’s.

I chose the 47 largest districts in the state (attendance from 1,340 – 31,603) since Moscow is in the middle of that pack for school size (trying to compare apples to apples here).

I looked at these two numbers as reported to the Idaho State Department of Education:

• Membership: Student count including special education preschool (enrollment minus withdrawals)
• Full-Term ADA: Average Daily Attendance for the entire school year

The statewide daily attendance is 93.8%

As it turns out, MSD has the lowest percent daily attendance of any of the top 47 school districts in the State of Idaho.

I thought — perhaps it’s because students are bagging MSD classes to attend UI classes. But that doesn’t hold since other towns in Idaho with universities are not on the bottom of the barrel as well.

If you have any thoughts on why Moscow’s daily attendance is so pathetic, feel free to email me.

The following email is making the rounds. I’ve received it twice now. Figured I go ahead and post it.

First… do you know what ANWR is?

ANWR = arctic national wildlife refuge.

Now…  a comparison

And some perspective…

Note where the proposed development area is…

(It's in the "ANWR coastal plain")

This is what the Democrats, liberals and "greens" show you when they talk about ANWR

…And they are right… these are photographs of ANWR

  

Isn't ANWR beautiful?  Why should we drill here (and destroy) this beautiful place?

Well… that's not exactly the truth

Do you remember the map?

The map showed that the proposed drilling area is in the ANWR coastal plain

Do those photographs look like a coastal plain to you?

What's going on here?

The answer is simple…

That is not where they are wanting to drill!

This is what the proposed exploration area actually looks like in the winter

And this is what it actually looks like in the summer

  

Here are a couple screen shots from Google earth

As you can see, the area where they are talking about drilling is a barren wasteland.

Oh… and they say that they are concerned about the effect on the local wildlife…

Here is a photo (shot during the summer) of the "depleted wildlife" situation created by drilling around Prudhoe Bay*… don't you think that the caribou really hate that drilling?

Here's that same spot during the winter.

Hey, this bear seems to really hate the pipeline near Prudhoe Bay*…

*The Prudhoe Bay area accounts for 17% of U.S. domestic oil production

Now, why do you think that the Democrats are lying about ANWR?

Remember when Al Gore said that the government should work to artificially raise gas prices to $5.00 a gallon?

Well…

Al Gore and his fellow Democrats have almost reached their goal!

Now that you know that the Democrats have been lying, what are you going to do about it?

You can start by forwarding this to everyone you know… so that they will know the truth.

Here’s an anecdote: my wife has an elementary education degree. She had to take zero math classes in four years of college.

I posted about this previously (Study: Teachers not being taught math properly).

The study says that our kids cannot do math because their teachers have not been taught math.

The school superintendents disagrees with the study.

Big surprise there.

But the WASL, ISAT, PSAT/SAT/ACT all agree with this study — when it comes to math, US students are stupid compared to the rest of the world.

The cause of that lies in the laps of the education community.

As reported in today’s edition of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

A nationwide study released this week by the National Council on Teacher Quality suggests universities and colleges aren't doing their job when it comes to preparing elementary school teachers to sufficiently teach math.

That lack of preparation is contributing to U.S. children falling in the middle or bottom of the pack when compared to other students on international math tests.

The report examined 77 elementary education programs around the country, or roughly 5 percent of the institutions that offer undergraduate elementary teacher certification. Washington State University and the University of Idaho were not examined in the study.

According to the report, a "fundamental problem observed in most of the programs is that there is a large deficit in the amount of time devoted to elementary mathematic topics." It also found that universities had "exceedingly low" expectations for the mathematics knowledge that aspiring teachers must demonstrate before entering teaching programs and upon graduation.

It also criticized many state governments for contributing to the problem by not issuing thorough and consistent guidelines for the mathematics preparation of elementary school teachers. The report found significant differences in the number and kind of courses required by each education program.

Idaho was listed as one of 18 states with no requirements pertaining to foundations of mathematics, algebra and geometry. Washington was one of 28 states that does have those requirements. 

…

Pullman School District Superintendent Paul Sturm, who hadn't seen the report, said the district's elementary school teachers are qualified to adequately teach math subjects.

"In general, we feel that in Pullman we attract very qualified teachers and we have pools of candidates that are very well-qualified," Sturm said.

However, he said math often isn't most teacher's area of strength. Many focused more on literary topics while preparing for their teaching career.

"I think at the elementary level there is more of an emphasis on literary in education," Sturm said. "I think that is a challenge for teachers in Pullman and across the state and across the nation, but that doesn't mean they aren't qualified to teach (math)."

Sturm said the district is taking an active approach to improving math education by providing professional development opportunities for teachers in areas of math.

Sturm added that state and national math standards have been constantly changing and evolving and that universities all over have well-prepared teachers for their professions.

Those standards must be devolving since our kids’ math abilities have continued to devolve…

"I wouldn't say that we have teachers that are poorly prepared ... We have some work to do to ramp up current teachers, but that's because standards have changed," Sturm said.

"I don't think the universities have ill-prepared teachers," he added. "I think expectations for learning and teachers teaching has changed over time and we are responding to that and I think the students are getting a better education because of that."

I don’t get it. Has math changed over the last 2,000 years?

If kids are getting poorer at math, then that fault lies squarely on the teaching.

Here’s an unusually frank confession.

From the University of Idaho’s Argonaut

[Paul] Alvey is somewhat of an anomaly. The third of seven children of two Republicans, he grew up in Firth, a small town of about 400 people in southeastern Idaho. He is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is married, has a little boy and admits that his Mormon friends sometimes give him a hard time.

…

Alvey originally intended to use his political science major as a springboard to go to law school. That changed when he began studying politics, and he found his “passion.” He attributed his conversion to liberalism to the progression of his studies.

“I was involved in classroom discussions and stuff, and so I realized my political preferences the more I got talking about the issues (with) the people that were independent-minded about those things,” he said. “I think most of my professors were on the liberal side.”

Alvey took no issue with the ideologies of his professors. He said the explanation is simple.

“The textbooks tell you that liberals are more open-minded, and conservatives are more closed-minded, so it’s expected to find college professors more liberal,” he said.

Of course, he wouldn’t know since there’s no diversity of opinion in academic circles.

When universities spoon feed you only one perspective, that’s not education — that’s indoctrination.

The fact that Moscow has two charter schools demonstrates the level of dissatisfaction with the Moscow School District.

As reported in today’s edition of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

Palouse Prairie Charter School officials cleared a major hurdle in their attempt to open a school in Moscow after the Idaho Public Charter Commission voted today to reverse its earlier denial of the group’s charter petition.

School officials hope to locate the four-classroom facility at 321 E. Palouse River Drive — the current location of Now & Then — and have the school open for students in August 2009.

Nils Peterson, chairman of the Palouse Prairie board of directors, said the school expects to enroll 75 students for its inaugural year.

The school’s previous attempts at securing a charter were denied because of concerns related to its budget and the lack of a suitable facility.

Peterson said the school still must secure a conditional use permit from the city of Moscow and address several remodeling issues before it can be opened.

“It’s been three and half years getting this far and we are excited to finally get out of the starting gates,” Peterson said. “This was not a one person show, this was a team effort.” 

I just went and looked at the 2007 school year data for MSD and the Moscow Charter School.

June 2007 MSD:

• Enrollment: 2,477 students
• Expenditures: $20,913,338
• Cost: $8,443 per student

June 2007 Moscow Charter School

• Enrollment: 135 students
• Expenditures: $793,330
• Cost: $5,876 per student

Jack Wenders asked this question a long time ago, and I’ll ask it again now: Why does MSD cost 30% more to operate than the charter school?

This is completely opposite of the arguments for economies of scale: that it’s cheaper to educate a large group of children than a small group.

Adam Graham had an audio interview with Karen Holgate, author of From Crayons to Condoms.

We discuss the problems in America’s public schools: Teachers as Amateur Psychologists messing with the minds of America’s youth, self-esteem trumping academic achievement, death education, and what you can do about it.

Click here to listen or click here to download.

HT: Adam’s Blog

I just got the 2007–2008 enrollment numbers for MSD.

There is good news and bad news.

• Total Enrollment: up 27
• Elementary Enrollment: up 74
• Pre-K: down 4
• K: down 2
• 1^st: up 34
• 2^nd: up 6
• 3^rd: up 13
• 4^th: up 27
• 5^th: down 19
• 6^th: up 19
• Secondary Enrollment: down 47
• 7^th: down 20
• 8^th: down 2
• 9^th: down 11
• 10th : up 18
• 11th : down 32
• 12th : no change

This shows a part of the picture, but not all of it. You have to actually compare last year’s 1^st grade enrollment to this year’s 2^nd grade enrollment (lateral comparisons) to get the full picture (because class sizes differ); and you have to do that for each class. When you do that, you get the overall picture that enrollment is going up in the elementary and down in the secondary.

So hat MSD has been experiencing is a loss in secondary enrollment and an increase in elementary enrollment. This is an interesting trend since birthrates are down in the country. It’s also interesting to know if this is a demographic effect, or if people are pulling kids out at the secondary level. My instinct says the former.

FWIW, I don’t have the enrollment numbers for the charter school. Those matter because students shift between the charter and MSD.

Case in point: recall when MSD shutdown Renaissance Charter? MSD cheerful announced their sudden increase in enrollment. They didn’t bother to tell anyone it was because they absorbed the school they just shut down.

I’ll post the charter school info when I get it.

(Click to enlarge)

Now here’s a big surprise: Our kids can’t do math because their teachers cannot do math.

But that’s only part of the problem. Teachers are told to a) not make their kids memorize and do speed drills, and b) to allow their kids to use calculators for math.

Both of those directly cause stillborn math skills.

From the Associated Press:

For kids to do better in math, their teachers might have to go back to school. Elementary-school teachers are poorly prepared by education schools to teach math, finds a study being released Thursday by the National Council on Teacher Quality.

Math relies heavily on cumulative knowledge, making the early years critical.

The study by the nonpartisan research and advocacy group comes a few months after a federal panel reported that U.S. students have widespread difficulty with fractions, a problem that arises in elementary school and prevents kids from mastering more complicated topics like algebra later on.

The report looked at 77 elementary education programs around the country, or roughly 5 percent of the institutions that offer undergraduate elementary teacher certification.

It found the programs, within colleges and universities, spend too little time on elementary math topics.

Author Julie Greenberg said education students should be taking courses that give them a deeper understanding of arithmetic and multiplication. She said the courses should explain how math concepts build upon each other and why certain ideas need to be emphasized in the classroom.

And here is something that researchers have been saying for years — the lowest bar for college is set by education departments. Now there is an unsustainable system!

Education schools also are not being selective enough, the report stated. Most require applicants to take an admissions test, usually around their sophomore year of college. But the test, which typically includes reading, writing and math sections, is far too easy, according to the report.

"Almost anyone can get in. Compared to the admissions standards found in other countries, American education schools set exceedingly low expectations for the mathematics knowledge that aspiring teachers must demonstrate," said the report.

U.S. children often fall in the middle or bottom of the pack when compared to other students on international math tests.

HT: Adam S.

As reported in today's edition of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

Moscow High School may install security cameras in the wake of school shootings across the nation. No decisions had been made but the school was talking with security companies to get price and operation information on cameras that would be placed in the school's high traffic areas. 

I took that $25,300,000 budget and divided by the number of students that Donicht predicted for the 2008–2009 school year (“between 2,375 and 2,400”) and came up with a cost of $10,542 and $10,653 per child per year to be educated in the Moscow school system.

As reported in today’s edition of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

The budgeting process was relatively easy for the Moscow School District this year.

The school board voted quickly and unanimously to approve a $25.3 million budget for the 2008-09 school year Tuesday night. Superintendent Candis Donicht said this year's process was less complicated than a year ago, when a lawsuit against the school district put tax levy money in question. The school district successfully reran the levy in November, giving district officials a sense of confidence about this year's budget.

"The impact of the lawsuit was that we were uncertain of what our revenue would be," Donicht said. "In a year when that is not an issue then we can safely assume that our budget is safe from that kind of uncertainty."

Donicht and district Business Manager Sue Driskill said this year's budget is meant to maintain current programs and add a few new things. Reduced staffing and frozen budgets that were included last year because of the lawsuit have been reinstated.

About $12 million of the district's $22 million general fund will go toward academic programs and teacher salaries. The district is adding one new teacher to West Park Elementary School to handle an influx of students.

Another large chunk of the general fund goes toward "support services," which includes everything from school counselors to administration to building care.

The district is reserving $580,000 as it usually does, but leaving $1.5 million unappropriated. Donicht said the unappropriated money will handle increased costs over the next four years.

She said the district most likely will not run another supplementary levy election for another four years, provided enrollment numbers remain steady.

"But we have to wait and see what happens from year to year," she said.

As reported one year ago in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

Educators believe students are facing a new reality in which a high school diploma can't be considered the end of the line. The difficulty facing educators and school districts - like Moscow School District - is finding a way to offer the spectrum of classes that expose and prepare students for all of their different options.

Given the dropout rate in Idaho schools, you would think that they would be a bit more concerned with students who are not completing high school at all.

The high school graduation rate in Idaho was only 78% in 2001, and it’s decreased to 76.6% today.

Below is some startling data from Education Week, including the fact that Idaho schools under-report the number of dropouts by 10%

For instance, Ed Week estimates that 28 kids per day drop out of the Idaho government schools.

Take a minute to soak in the implications of the information below.

EIA discusses what demographers have predicted for 30+ years — we have arrived at the demographic winter.

I think this is another reason MSD’s enrollment has been plummeting. Not only are parents pulling kids out to homeschool/privately school them, but the number of kids per household is plummeting. Moscow’s “progressives” clearly reflect the values of Seattle and Portland — where there are more pets than children.

How will the teacher’s unions spin this so as to keep needing more and more teachers? IMO, the only way to do that is by trumpeting smaller class sizes — which has proven by study after study to be useless.

From EIA:

Teacher shortages and class size reductions have dominated the education debate so it is perhaps understandable that it has taken this long for the focus to change. But the numbers are getting harder to ignore, and the press and education bureaucracy are starting to take notice.

 

Detroit school officials project a $408 million deficit and 1,400 layoffs as enrollment stands to drop to its lowest level in 91 years. The situation isn't much better in Miami, and this morning's Los Angeles Times highlights how L.A. Unified's enrollment drop affects more than just personnel. The district continues to build schools and facilities for students it no longer has.

 

Perhaps most disturbing is this quote from a consultant who provides enrollment projections for California school districts: "The hardest part for anybody who does projections on anything is when you get what I call a curve change. Is it going to go down? Is it going to stay flat? Is it going to go up again? That is the part where it feels like you're reading tea leaves."

 

That would be amusing, if it weren't for the fact that taxpayers are laying out billions in salaries, benefits and construction bonds based on the divinations of school district soothsayers. The larger districts are feeling the pinch first, and not all of them yet, but days of reckoning are coming.

 

My suggestion in the pages of the New York Daily News that such days are in store for the New York City public system is getting some attention. It remains one of the paper's most-read editorials nearly a week after it appeared.

From The Education Intelligence Agency.

Click on the images to enlarge.

As reported in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

The Idaho State Board of Education announced today the members of a committee searching for a new University of Idaho president.

Committee members will meet monthly, according to a SBOE news release. They will identify finalists in six to nine months.

Board members Paul Agidius of Moscow and Sue Thilo of Coeur d'Alene will lead the committee. The other members are:

• Katherine Aiken, dean of the UI College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences;
• Rich Allen, McCall resident;
• Thomas Bitterwolf, UI chemistry professor;
• Bill Gilbert Jr., University of Idaho Foundation president;
• Karen Guilfoyle, UI Faculty Council chairwoman and teacher-education professor;
• Jim Hawkins, Coeur d'Alene resident and former Idaho Department of Commerce director;
• Garrett Holbrook, UI student body president;
• Shawn Keough, Idaho state senator (R-Sandpoint);
• Paul Kimmell, Avista regional business manager;
• Tom Limbaugh, UI Alumni Association president;
• Chris Meyer, Coeur d'Alene Tribe education director;
• Matt Powell, Hagerman Fish Culture Experiment Station Aquaculture Research Institute association director;
• Rob Spear, UI athletic director; and
• Robert Smith, professor of biological and agricultural engineering at UI-Idaho Falls.

From today's Idaho Statesman:

A 16-member panel was named Thursday by the State Board of Education to search for candidates to replace Tim White as University of Idaho president.That panel is expected to take up to nine months to find three to five finalist for the State Board of Education to consider for the job.

The search panel includes north Idaho board members Paul Agidius and Sue Thilo. It also includes community members and U of I faculty and administrators.

White will leave U of I at the end of this month to become University of California Riverside chancellor.

Steven Daley-Laursen, University of Idaho's College of Natural Resources dean, was named interim U of I president earlier this month by the State Board of Education until a permanent president is hired.

Search committee members include:

• Katherine Aiken: Dean, College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, University of Idaho
• Rich Allen: community member, McCall, Idaho
• Thomas Bitterwolf: U of I chemistry professor
• Bill Gilbert Jr.: chairman, University of Idaho Foundation
• Karen Guilfoyle: U of I education professor and Faculty council chair
• Jim Hawkins: Former Department of Commerce, and former U of I Foundation president
• Garrett Holbrook: U of I student body president
• Shawn Keough: State Senator, R-Sandpoint
• Paul Kimmell: Community Member, Avista Corporation
• Tom Limbaugh: U of I Alumni Association president
• Chris Meyer: Education director, Coeur d’Alene Tribes.
• Matt Powell: Associate Director Aquaculture Research Institute, Hagerman Fish Culture Experiment Station.
• Rob Spear: U of I athletic director, University of Idaho
• Robert Smith: Professor Biological and Agricultural Engineering Department at U of I in Idaho Falls.

HT: Carl W.

The following article by Murf Raquet appeared in today's edition of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News. This is the consensus of the Daily News editorial board.

Like it or not, a lot is riding on the graduation rate schools report to the federal government.

Too much money is at stake for school districts to hide behind outdated reporting methods that rarely give an accurate indication of how many students receive a diploma.

Bottom line, graduation rates should be no more complicated than stating how many children are in a class and how many graduated.

To that end, a plan by U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings and an agreement between the nation's governors may hold the key to accurate reporting. Both entities proposed a method that tracks students by assigning them a unique ID number.

…

Assigning a number may not be the best way to track progress, but it is the only one we have that is relatively easy to employ and has the potential to be successful.

Much has been made lately about the accountability of schools. Accurately tracking students' progress will be a big step in that direction.

I’m really surprised at how the Daily News has taken a strong “education accountability” position in the last few months.

Someone at the paper must be looking into what’s really going on with schools across the nation and not buying the union lies.

Cd’A wants to sign a 200 year lease with the UI?

Call me crazy, but I cannot see signing a 200 year lease with anyone.

From the Associated Press:

The Coeur d'Alene City Council signaled its readiness to sign a $1.3 million lease that would keep the University of Idaho in this northern Idaho resort town for nearly 200 years.

The lease agreement is slated to be considered by the Idaho State Board of Education for approval Thursday.

If approved, the pact also would give the Moscow, Idaho-based university the right to 2.5 acres next to North Idaho College that are currently part of a lumber mill that's due to be shuttered and vacated.

The leases are all part of efforts to create a controversial higher education corridor in Coeur d'Alene.

Some in Coeur d'Alene including businessman Duane Hagadone have fought that plan, saying they'd rather see the land privatized to boost tax revenue.

And the political posturing continues.

From the Associated Press:

The University of Idaho is scheduled to update the Idaho State Board of Education on plans to open a law school branch in Boise.

The board hesitated in April to approve a two-location concept for the Moscow-based law school. Trustees instead passed a motion allowing the university to draft implementation plans for the project.

College of Law Dean Don Burnett says those plans will likely be finished in July. The university will report to trustees in eastern Idaho this week.

Trustees have asked that the plans show expanding legal education in the state's capital city won't harm programs on the university campus in northern Idaho. The state constitution requires legal education to be based in Moscow.

Constitutions can be changed…

This was an amazing recognition of a talented young woman. Congratulations to Maggie Church!

As reported in today’s edition of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

Individual outstanding performance awards were announced in alphabetical order by state.

Maggie Church and the other members of the Logos School mock trial team watched from their seats as the governor of Delaware, the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Delaware and other high-ranking legal officials presented awards to students from Alaska, California, and Delaware.

The May 10 awards ceremony was the culmination of two days of intense competition at the National High School Mock Trial Championship in Wilmington, Del., and the Logos "A" team knew it had done well.

"We were all hoping that one of us would be recognized," Church said.

The announcer skipped over Idaho, however, and nine outstanding students out of the 378 participants accepted their awards and sat back down.

But there was one more very special prize to give.

"Maggie Church, Idaho."

Church was stunned. She stood and walked up to the stage to accept what turned out to be the most prestigious award of all: in all four rounds of the nationals competition, the judging panels had singled Church out as the best high school trial advocate in the country.

"I just heard my name and stood up," Church said. "It was kind of a blur."

Logos went on to place 16^th in the national competition. It was a satisfying finish for the team, especially in light of its relative inexperience at the national level, as last year's "A" team and national championship contingent consisted entirely of graduating seniors. But this year's team had been preparing in a big way since last fall.

Before nationals came months of four-times-a-week practices, late nights and early mornings, small conquests over nerves and schedules. Church was used to the rigorous training schedule, since she spent her sophomore and junior years on the Logos "B" team. The recently graduated 18-year-old, who will attend New Saint Andrews College in the fall, said her parents were more keen on her auditioning for her first year of mock trial than she was.

"But now I'm really glad they made me do it," she said.

High school mock trial teams perform with three attorneys and three witnesses, and the students prepare both the defense and plaintiff sides of a given case. Coaches assign the students to parts - Logos coach Chris Schlect approaches the role assignments as a baseball coach would, placing certain students at first base and others at shortshop - and try to give each student the opportunity to play different roles.

At the Idaho state championships, for example, Church played a plaintiff witness, the roommate of a woman who had been stalked in an Internet chat room. At nationals, Church performed as plaintiff attorney for three rounds and defense witness once in a corporate takeover/shareholders' rights case.

The students don't memorize their finely tuned arguments, Church said. There are simply too many directions the other team could go.

"We like to call it 'beyond' memorized," she said.

Schlect said Church's ability to reframe her arguments in time with the team's competitors at every stage of the competition was key to her superior performance.

"You can't just stand there with your teeth in your mouth," he said. Church was able think on her feet and keep cool under intense pressure while she delivered withering cross-examinations, which probably helped set her apart from the other trial advocates at nationals.

Legal professionals across the country agreed. When she returned to Moscow, Church received letters of commendation from the chief justice of the Delaware Supreme Court, the chairman of the board of the national mock trial championship, Moscow Mayor Nancy Chaney and Latah County Prosecuting Attorney Bill Thompson.

Church has taken it all in humbly, but knows she'll miss the mock trial experience.

"If I could do it again, I definitely would," she said. The hardest thing now? Letting go of the experience.

"I keep thinking, shouldn't I be practicing? Everything stays in your brain for a while."

She plans to move on, although it likely won't be to a career as a lawyer.

"Mock trial has been a complement to what I've been learning at Logos," Church said. "But I'll be focusing my interests in college and what I end up doing will depend on that." 

And would someone please forward this link onto Rose Huskey. She still thinks that Logos does not allow girls to compete as lawyers.

The following is from the online edition of the Lewiston Tribune.

The State Board of Education named Steven Daley-Laursen today to serve as interim president at the University of Idaho.

Daley-Laursen, dean of UI’s College of Natural Resources, was selected from a group of four candidates for the interim position.

As reported in today’s edition of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

The Idaho State Board of Education will meet Tuesday in Moscow to discuss who will take over as interim University of Idaho president.

Board member Paul Agidius of Moscow, who is helping lead the search committee, said the board may not actually name an interim president this week. The search committee plans to share its progress with the board during the meeting.

“If things go the way we hope they go, we will then be talking about giving information (about a candidate) to the full board,” he said. “But again, it’s one of those things that may or may not happen.”

 

At least a diploma will mean something by 2013/2014 in Idaho.

From the Idaho Statesman:

Idaho won't get a do-over on No Child Left Behind — but it might succeed in slowing down how fast the academic bar rises for the state's 272,000 students.

The U.S. Department of Education rejected a [Idaho] State Board of Education request to restart the clock on the federal academic improvement program that holds schools accountable for student progress.

"We do not believe that 'restarting' Idaho's timeline ... would either increase the quality of instruction for students or improve the academic achievement of students," wrote Kerri Briggs, assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Education.

"I am not surprised that the U.S. Department of Education denied the request," said Tom Luna, state superintendent of public instruction. "And we at the State Department of Education will continue to offer schools and districts the support and technical assistance they need to raise student achievement."

Hundreds of Idaho schools are in various stages of not meeting benchmarks for student progress.

Thirty-two schools could face the toughest sanctions under No Child Left Behind if they don't meet academic standards for the school year just completed. That would make six years in a row the schools fell below expectations and each could face state intervention in their educational programs.

Ed Board officials argued that since the feds had declared that the state's testing system was inadequate, it shouldn't be used to determine how well schools are succeeding.

The rejection, however, isn't stopping the Ed Board. It will now consider asking the U.S. Department of Education for a one-year stay in the increase in the number of students who must be on grade level under No Child Left Behind to give Idaho schools and teachers time to acclimate to the new testing system unveiled in 2007.

Idaho had originally said it would aim for having all its students on their grade levels by 2013, a year ahead of the federal requirement, Ed Board officials said. If the feds grant a one-year stay, it means the state would have to hit the 100 percent mark in 2014, the same year as the NCLB's original requirement.

Here’s an interesting perspective — in order for Idaho’s flagship university to survive and thrive, the President must be a salesman, not an academician or visionary.

From today's Idaho Statesman:

Four years ago, Tim White took over a flagship state university in debt, disarray and disrepair. The University of Idaho had run up millions of dollars in red ink, caused in part by the failed University Place campus project in Boise. The university had lost some of its stature and stability - and, as White accurately put it Thursday, "had lost its bearings."

White will leave the university this month in much better shape than he found it. This speaks to White's candid capacity for recognizing the university's challenges - and his willingness to make the tough decisions required to shore up the school's finances. His successor will have a different job, but still a difficult job.

Topping the to-do list is the sales job - to donors, alums, high school seniors and their parents.

Over the past four years, donors have contributed $72 million to the U of I - and White is quick to say the university must do better.

The next president will take over a fundraising campaign, now in its silent phase, that could set an ambitious $300 million goal.

The U of I will face stiff competition for donor dollars; for starters, Boise State University and the College of Idaho both hope to raise $175 million apiece. A softening economy won't help - and if slow tax collections result in lean state agency budgets, public universities such as the U of I will be under increasing pressure to meet its needs through fundraising efforts.

The next president must make this campaign a success by telling the U of I's story to an extremely loyal alumni base, says White. And he's right.

According to the Boise Examiner.

Why? Because of the cost of fuel.

First electricity rates jumped, now gasoline prices are galloping up, and the next sticker shock could be chicken prices, which are likely to go up at least 10 percent by the summer.

That’s what James Perdue, chairman of the East Coast’s largest poultry company, told members of the Maryland Economic Development Association on Tuesday morning.

The culprit is the rising price of corn, which is the main source of chicken feed. More than a third of all corn is going to produce ethanol, a fuel added to or used instead of gasoline.

“We’ve got to feed those chickens,” Perdue said.

He noted that Tyson Foods, the nation’s largest poultry firm, announced in April a second-quarter loss. Because Perdue Farms is privately held, the company doesn’t report its finances, he said. “It’s very difficult to make money” in this environment. “You’ve got to raise prices.”

HT: Dave G.

The Coeur d’Alene Press has a long article asking for a bit of thought before signing an extremely long term lease with the UofI.

A long lease: like 198 years!

HT: Dave G.

Notice that the high passing rate is due to the fact that they threw away the math portion of the WASL.

One would think that for a child to graduate these days, he/she should also be able to do math.

Apparently not.

And what’s a “portfolio of math accomplishments?”

As reported in today’s edition of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

High school seniors in Whitman County fared better than those across the state when it came to meeting the Washington Assessment of Student Learning's reading and writing requirements for graduation.

Nearly 97 percent of seniors in the Pullman School District met those standards, compared to 91.4 percent statewide.

Assistant Superintendent Susana Reyes said fewer than 10 of the district's 176 seniors failed to meet the reading and writing graduation requirements. She declined to give exact figures because of privacy concerns.

Roughly 83 percent of the district's seniors also met the WASL's requirement to receive the Certificate of Academic Achievement, which is given to students who meet the requirement for math, in addition to reading and writing. Only 67.51 percent of seniors statewide received the CAA.

Passing the math WASL is not required to graduate, but those who failed that portion were required to fulfill alternative requirements. Only 72 percent of the state's class of 2008 have passed the math WASL.

Reyes said 24 Pullman seniors still need to meet the WASL's math requirements, which can be accomplished by taking and passing the August high school WASL, or by submitting a "collection of evidence" - essentially a portfolio illustrating their accomplishments.

 

From the Associated Press:

University of Idaho President Tim White says he doesn't expect his impending departure to derail key initiatives on the Moscow campus, including plans to build a law school branch in Boise.

The state Board of Education is looking for someone to temporarily fill the position after White resigns June 30 to become chancellor of the University of California-Riverside.

White said he'll make himself available to the person chosen to steer the university while a national search is carried out to fill the position permanently.

"I'll be a great ex-president," White told the Associated Press on Thursday.

White was largely responsible for stabilizing the university after he was named president four years ago during a tumultuous time for the Moscow campus, which faced budget cuts, faculty turnover and a financial scandal that stemmed from a failed expansion project in Boise.

He made significant changes in university administration and said making financial procedures transparent was among his top priorities.

As he leaves, White said he doesn't expect any mass exodus or any significant gaps in daily operations.

"If I would have thought I was leaving the place in a lurch, I wouldn't have made the decision," he said.

Education board officials have said they'll name an interim president by the end of the month.

During his presidency, White said he helped the university raise more than $70 million.

The school will need an articulate spokesman to further "bold plans" to expand the law school with a branch in Boise, as well as help carry out fundraising for a $52 million Kibbie Dome improvement project, he added.

From Greg Forster over at J.P. Greene’s website:

Lately [Mike Antonucci’s] been commenting on how teacher hiring continues to far outpace enrollment growth; even states where enrollment is flat or shrinking are still hiring like crazy. Maryland, for example, expanded its teacher workforce 10 percent from 2001 to 2006, while enrollment grew less than 1 percent. California, which is still carrying around an extremely bloated teacher workforce from its apparently failed experiment in class size reduction, has just announced that it’s cancelling the large majority of its planned teacher layoffs.

This isn’t a new phenomenon; as somebody pointed out you-know-where, the teacher workforce has been expanding relative to the student population for decades.

What effects does this have? You might expect it to reduce class sizes. The benefits of class size reduction are seriously doubtful and can’t possibly be cost-effective anyway, but never mind that for now. The fact is, class sizes don’t seem to have been reduced. Data from the U.S. Dept. of Education’s Digest of Education Statistics indicate that while the system’s student/teacher ratio has been falling, class sizes have been flat, partly because each teacher teaches for fewer hours per day; there are also probably more teachers with non-teaching assignments (as mentor teachers, etc.) but I don’t know if we have data for that.

One effect the teacher glut is almost certainly to exert negative pressure on teacher salaries. Now, despite what you’ve been told, teachers are not underpaid. (See also the chapter on this in . . . well, you know.) But teacher salaries have remained stable, growing only a little faster than inflation. If we didn’t have a teacher glut, the laws of economics tell us salaries would be growing faster.

So who benefits? Well, the teachers’ unions make out like bandits. More teachers means bigger budgets without the hassle of selling the membership on dues hikes, and more political clout because the public school gravy train is larger. And while the unions’ political clout is badly overestimated - witness, for example, the startling political success of school choice - they do have enough power to exercise significant influence when no one else is looking, such as where staffing policies are concerned.

Via Northwest Professional Educators (NWPE):

NWPE GUEST APPEARANCE ON CNN HEADLINE NEWS

Cindy Omlin, Executive Director of Northwest Professional Educators (NWPE), appeared on the CNN Headline News Glenn Beck Show to react to Washington state's loss of a $13.2 million math and science education grant due to the obstructionism of the Washington Education Association.  Because the grant called for direct payment of performance bonuses to teachers, the union said this violated Washington's collective bargaining laws and, therefore, WEA would not allow the money into the state.  Watch the 5-minute segment at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qrn7U9C51Lc.  The transcript is available here: http://www.nwpe.org/pdf_files/glenn_beck_transcript.pdf.

For related information see, "WA high schools lose $13 million grant for AP teachers" at http://www.theolympian.com/breakingnews/story/440831.html, "Union Response to Grant Inhibits Its Success" at http://www.spokesmanreview.com/tools/story_pf.asp?ID=244569, and NWPE's letter to editor on the issue at http://www.nwpe.org/PDF_Files/Time_to_Shake_Up_WEA.pdf.

Just a quick excerpt from “Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub”, to give you a flavor of what’s going on in publik edukation.

The extract begins below the line, but I encourage you to read the whole thing.

HT: Robert H.

Censoring Santayana’s dangerous idea